Here are the films, new and old, that I saw and most admired in 2024.
Michael Mann's Ferrari
I went into Mann's latest film, skeptical to say the least. Although I taught a college course on him, I really had not been fully moved by one of his films since The Insider (24 years ago!) and he hadn't made a film since Blackhat (8 years ago!)
All that to say, I was completely unprepared for the experience of Ferrari. First off, nothing in Mann's body of work resembles it in look. Gone is the cool, heavily stylized photography of the Thief-Ali period. Gone is the self-conscious, digital experimentation of the Collateral-Blackhat period. Ferrari finds Mann working in a much more naturalistic register, not only in the way the film is shot and production designed but also in the framing (again, gone are the myriad of jump cuts and extreme close-ups).
Mann has always been incredibly precise in his location scouting, his character research, his attention to detail. But what has always seemed like an almost unparalleled approach in truth seeking in terms of directorial preparation has always been expressed in a much more heightened and mannered execution. For the first time the feel of how Mann approaches his work is echoed by what comes out the other end.
There has been a knock on Mann his entire career about his female characters. Their lack of dimension. Penelope Cruz's Laura is his strongest female character to date and one any woman's director would be proud to claim as their own.
Certain works by certain artists force an entire reconsideration of an artist's career. With Ferrari, Mann reminds us that at his heights he is every bit as effective as Scorsese, Coppola or any other filmmaker that has emerged since the end of classic Hollywood. But, unlike his aforementioned peers, with Ferrari, Mann still seems to be growing at the tail end of his career, reaching heights that he's been chasing since the very beginning.
My first experience with Roemer's work has me wanting to see everything he directed (which isn't very many films unfortunately). I can't recall any earlier American film dealing more honestly and more humanely with the race movement in our country.
Who was Terrence Davies? A career of but eight narrative features, only two of which I have seen so far. If this work is representative, he is a filmmaker interested in utilizing subtle, graceful means to explore, unflinchingly, the rich complexity of our lives.
Hong Sang-soo's In Front of Your Face
First off, the effect of Hong's color films in general have a greater impact on me than his black-and-white work. There's just a warmth that the color gives his worlds that I miss when he gets away from it. Also, there is a weight to this film and a number of the scenes in it - whether it is when Sang ok visits her childhood home, the long scene at the Novel restaurant and of course the final few minutes - that give his film a substance and heft that not all of Hong's work is interested in entertaining.
A Japanese film unlike any I have ever seen. Part coming of age, part disaster film, part horror film (to name but a few of its many wonderful facets) all filmed with great rigor and artistry, but also infused with a tremendous sense of joy and freedom. Reminds me a little of the first time I saw Pierrot Le Fou, when I was presented with something that defied all that I thought cinema was or could be.
Is Kaurismaki part of that rare breed of filmmaker, the one that actually gets better in the latter part of their career? I can't claim to have seen all his work but I've seen one or two from the 80s and 90s and now in the last month or so both this and Fallen Leaves.
One of the few who has taken up the mantle of humanist filmmaking and one of the few who can claim to have a tone and style all his own.
The only Bresson feature I had never seen is yet another astounding work by the French master. It manages to maintain Bresson's rigorous style while bringing some warmth into his formal system of restraint and austerity.
If this were to be the final film of Eastwood's career, not only would it be a great addition to his body of work. But it would also belong to that small and fascinating group of great final films.
Reminded me, more than anything, of late Fritz Lang films like Beyond a Reasonable Doubt and While the City Sleeps. One of those fever dreams of a film, in terms of how the viewer experiences it, that seems malformed and amateurish on the surface while retrospective and rich underneath.
Jean Eustache's Une Sale Histoire
Jean Eustache is a legendary figure of the post Nouvelle Vague and the director of what may be the most important French film of the seventies, The Mother and the Whore.
While most of the Nouvelle Vague was passionately making films to illustrate the uniqueness of film as an artform, Eustache was forging a counter direction. At least here and in The Mother and the Whore, Eustache weaponizes words in the tradition of theater, proving through his ability as a writer and director of actors that film in the right hands can be just as cinematic when treated as a "verbal" medium.
Marva Nabili's The Sealed Soil
The type of film that every cinephile aspires to find, the work that is far less known that it should be by a filmmaker who is far from a household name.
Profound in so many ways but chiefly in its framing, its location work, its acting, its work with sound, and the rhythms the editing of its images creates.
Nabili discusses Bresson's influence, which is clear. This is "transcendental filmmaking" that is warmer but also slower (due to numerous very long takes) than the French master's work.
Hong Sang-soo's In Our Day
The 21st of Hong's features I have seen and among the strongest.
What's most striking is how much he has moved to the long take. I would bet there are less than 20 cuts in the entire film. His growing affinity for this choice of filming tracks well for Hong, as he is our greatest current practitioner of "distilled cinema".
When I call Hong's cinema distilled, it is chiefly two areas I am talking about - the process of making the film for Hong and then the resulting film experience for the viewer.
Hong removes any excess item to ensure the filmmaking act is as simple as possible - as few locations, as few cuts, as few actors, as few movements of the camera, as few props. In doing so, he ensures that he can make his films quickly, inexpensively, and remain, as far as I can tell, the most prolific filmmaker we've had since Fassbinder.
And then there is the result of his methods, the film. Like the poet in the movie says, "Maintaining a clear vision is the hardest thing in the world."
Hong, like Rohmer before him, pursues clarity by making a similar type film again and again. He makes slight variations each time to the approach, tweaking small pieces of the method that could be cloudying up the vision.
I can imagine Hong saying, "Let me see what a film in almost only long takes does. Will it make the emotions of my actors more fully felt, make my worlds more fully immersive, add clarity to my vision? Or is there a different piece of my method I'll need to refine and adjust the next time out?"
It's this endless reducing in Hong's work as he pursues the essence of the medium that makes his work, to me, as important as any in current cinema.
David Simon and Eric Overmyer's Treme
For the way it tells the story of a community and city, I now rate it even higher than what I previously considered the best TV series I had ever watched, The Wire.
